Statement of Principles

The Alliance:

• supports balanced copyright and related laws that advance the interests of society as a whole;
  
  
• believes copyright laws must balance effective protection of the interests of rightsholders against the wider public interest in the advancement of learning, innovation, research and knowledge;
  
  
• believes that fair dealing and other exceptions and limitations must be preserved and carried forward into the digital environment;
  
  
• supports appropriate and flexible compulsory licences that ensure guaranteed access for fair payment;
  
  
• supports the fundamental principle that copyright protection extends to expressions and not to facts, ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such;
  
  
• supports clear limitations of liability for copyright infringement in circumstances where compliance cannot practically or reasonably be enforced; and
  
  
• opposes laws that would give rightsholders power to use technological or contractual measures to distort the balance of rights set out in the Copyright Act.